Our quick look around the NBA, or what you missed while singing “If I had a hammer” in honor of Pete Seeger….
Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans. He had 8 blocks in this game, giving him 15 blocks in his last two games — he is a defensive beast. He protects the rim but his length lets him block shots all the way out to the arc. By the way, he also had 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting, and in his spare time pulled down 7 rebounds. On an injury note, he tweaked his finger in the fourth quarter and seemed to be in quite a bit of pain, but said after the game he was “good” and will play Wednesday for the Pelicans.
Anthony Bennett, Cleveland Cavaliers. He had 15 points and 8 rebounds, both career highs, in the latest ugly Cavs loss. Good to see a guy who had a rough year taste a little success. Don’t read too much into one decent night, lots of players have had one decent night. But also, there are a lot of players who had slow starts to their rookie season and went on to nice, long, healthy NBA careers. Maybe not the kinds of careers that people expect of a No. 1 pick, but it’s too early to write him off completely.
Portland Trail Blazers defense. Terry Stotts will not be coaching the All-Star Game for the West and Portland’s defense is why. They had played better on that end for a stretch (not great but better), however in their last five games heading into Tuesday night Portland had allowed 111.3 points per 100 possessions (almost six more than their season average) which is 29th in the NBA in that stretch. Then against the Grizzlies they allowed a team that wins with defense to put up 107.2 points per 100 possessions with a true shooting percentage of 56 percent. If they have dreams of getting out of the first round of the playoffs they have to be tighter on that end of the court.
Houston Rockets defense. Lets get the caveats out of the way right up front — San Antonio was without Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, Tiago Splitter then Manu Ginobili left the game in the third quarter. The Spurs are depleted. That said the Spurs were sharp on defense, their rotations were crisp, they are athletic and can switch, Dwight Howard was moving well, as a team they were aggressive. The Spurs, even shorthanded, destroy a lot of teams with their execution and for a night the Rockets were more than up to the task. As always, the issue in Houston is consistency — can they do it again?
